


Everything that I am Not

by RiseHigh



Series: The Reluctant Housemates [8]
Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: AKA the usual for me, And Matteusz being a kind human, Canon Compliant, Gen, Justifiably angry Quill, Post-Episode: 1x05, Reluctant Housemates, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8647702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiseHigh/pseuds/RiseHigh
Summary: “I am just making observation.”“Next time, keep your observations to yourself.”“Unlikely.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> In Brave-ish Heart, Quill is pretty broken. By the time we get to Detained, she's pieced enough of herself back together to keep her facade in place. Yet, I can't get what she must be going through (especially that first weekend) out of my head and it's made me all emo, so here we are.

These humans were so obsessed with routines, Quill mused as she sat in front of her bedroom window with her coffee. Take this woman. Every Sunday morning at half nine, she walked with her child in a pushchair down their street. The woman would be an easy target for her enemies. All it would take was someone with sniper rifle from a bedroom window. Quill probably wouldn’t even need a sniper rifle—any old gun would do.

“Not that I’m going to,” Quill muttered to the arn when she felt a brief throbbing be added to the dull ache that had been with her all morning. It was better than what she felt first day and even the second, but it appeared she was right in speculating that she’d have the headache until the Prince’s bruise faded. Still worth it.

Besides, there was no reason for the arn to get all worked up over that woman. She looked too dull to have done anything worthy of having Quill—let alone anyone else—as an enemy. Quill doubted the woman could even break her precious Sunday routine. She likely would have a tantrum, like the child appeared to be throwing, if anyone even suggested it.

“Humans,” she snorted derisively as she stepped away from the window.

Quill would never be that foolishly bound by a routine. There had been routines once, but as she grew older, and the world she loved began to crumble, those routines faded away—replaced insurrections and battle strategy. There couldn’t be routines in war. Routines made you predictable; predictability gave your enemies the advantage. Habits were permissible—the exchanged looks among comrades, the squeeze of a hand, her finger brushing along the side of her gun before settling on the trigger—and, most days, she hadn’t needed more than that.

The Rhodians though—they had loved routine. It took two days of being _bound_ to the Prince for her to learn exactly what he would do each day. In less than a week, she had been able to predict with 97% accuracy what any Rhodian in the royal residence was doing at any moment. The routines were supposedly devised to maximize efficiency and promote harmony through order.

It was a load of crap.

Unconsciously, her grip on her coffee mug tightened.

But _Charles_ had loved it. Thrived on it. Still thrived on it. Because when you hide behind routines and schedules and traditions you don’t have to think about the implications of your actions. You don’t have to think about the wholesale oppression of the entire race or how your _just and civilized_ punishment was nothing more than slavery—or admit that you that your ‘moral qualms’ about genocide were nothing more than sanctimonious lies to appease your boyfriend and a pathetic need to cling to a ball of souls belonging to people long dead.

Her hands were now shaking.

It wasn’t until she heard the coffee slosh against the side of the mug that Quill even realized what her hands were doing. She set the mug down on her vanity and placed both palms on the cool surface. She forced herself to take deep breaths and stare at the deep brown liquid until its movement stilled. It took another minute beyond that for her breathing to return to normal.

Quill hated this.

Hated that she couldn’t act.

Hated that she couldn’t control her emotions.

Hated that there were once again tears on her ridiculous human face.

Those tears were the reason she was drinking coffee alone in her room. Quill had been maddeningly unable to keep her emotions in check. She had thought avoiding the smug face of the Prince that morning would allow her some respite from the churning in her gut, but it wasn’t enough. Staying in her room alone clearly was not helping and might even be making her feel worse. Abandoning the coffee mug, she snatched her robe and headed into the corridor.

Quill could hear their laughter downstairs and glared in the general direction of the kitchen. They would be in there cooking (flirtatiously no doubt) together. They cooked together every Sunday morning. The Polish One liked routines just as much as the Prince. He also like trying to include her in the sickeningly domestic routine. Not the cooking, of course, but the breakfast. The first time he had made enough for her to have a full English breakfast. Quill had disliked most of it—she still disliked most Earth food—but the sausage and toast had been acceptable. The next week he made a plate of just that for her.

Not this week though.

Why would he make breakfast for the monster who hit his boyfriend and wanted to wipe the Shadow Kin from the universe?

Quill turned her back to the voices downstairs and went into the bathroom. She found a wet towel—the Prince’s—in the middle of the floor. Gods, he was a slob, she thought as she kicked it into the corner of the room. Turning on the water, she stripped off her pyjamas and stepped under the spray. Between the rush of water in her ears and near scalding temperature on her skin, Quill was finally able to quiet her thoughts and just be.

Eventually, reality began seeping back into her consciousness, and she forced herself to actually wash her hair and the rest of her fleshy human body. Then it was time for her own monotonous morning routine.

_Water off. Dry body. Twist towel onto head. Robe on. Bedroom. Get dressed. Back to bathroom. Dry and style hair. Bedroom, again. Make-up._

Make-up was ridiculous. Quill had thought as much from the moment they had been abandoned on this planet. These people were obsessed with youth and beauty—controlled by social expectations and standards that were so internalized that most of these humans didn’t even realize why they painted their lips and eyes. Quill didn’t care about any of that. Make-up was strategic. It could make her features sharper while softening others—a physical manifestation of her anger that told the world to back-off and leave her alone.

Quill looked in the mirror of her vanity. Make up was done. Routine complete. She felt somewhat satisfied. The satisfaction (even if only partial) disgusted her, so she pulled a face at her own reflection before getting up from her seat. Taking her half-filled coffee mug, she left her bedroom for the bathroom (again) where she picked up the basket holding hers and the Polish One’s dirty towels. She considered leaving the Prince’s balled in the corner, but realized it would likely sit there until well into the evening, so she added it to the basket and went downstairs to face the breakfast duo.

A Polish accent greeted her. “Good morning.”

Quill glanced around the room as she set the coffee cup on the counter. No Prince. That was a relief.

“Charlie went to the shop to get milk,” he explained. “We ran out.”

Quill shrugged. She had just bought milk on Thursday, so it seemed odd that they were out already. She didn’t care enough to think about it further and just opened the washing machine so she could stuff the towels inside.

“There’s breakfast for you. The sausages should still be warm.” He depressed the lever on the toaster, which already had bread in the slots. “Toast will be ready in a moment.”

Quill hid her surprise by focusing on the buttons of the machine. When she looked up he was dumping out her cold coffee and refilling it from the fresh pot he had made. He was insufferably kind, that one.

“Why did you still do all this?” she asked sharply as she picked up the empty plate from the counter that had clearly been set out for her.

“It’s Sunday morning.” He handed her the mug and took the plate from her hands. “This is what we do.”

“There is no _we_.”

“You are here.”

She watched him put sausage on the plate. “Not by choice.”

The toaster popped and he took the bread out. “But you are.”

Quill said nothing but watched him spread butter across both pieces of toast, before handing the plate back to her. She nodded at him—a half-hearted message of thanks—and carried it to the table. He started on the dishes while she ate in silence. It was a few minutes before he spoke again.

“When I lived with my parents, I felt trapped,” he began. Quill looked over to him apprehensively as he continued, “I could not be myself. I would get so angry that I would want to break and smash things. It is not same, but I think sometimes this is how you feel.”

Quill furrowed her brow. Was this teenager actually lecturing her on her feelings? And why was he so damn insightful?

“It is not healthy.”

No shit.

She rolled her eyes and then pasted a smile on her face.

“What, pray tell, should I do about this? Find myself a nice boyfriend and move in with him?”

The comment was supposed to be cutting, but Quill couldn’t keep a hint of lonely desperation from her voice. Naturally, he picked up on this and gave her a sad smile in response. This earned him another eye roll.

“It is not for me to decide what you need.”

But it was for him to decide what the Prince did with the Cabinet. She bit her tongue to keep that thought in her head. He didn’t deserve the vitriol that coursed through her at the mere thought of what she needed—what the Prince had the power to do yet would not. The Polish One may be was misguided, but at least he was honest.

“I am just making observation.”

“Next time, keep your observations to yourself.”

“Unlikely.”

Quill’s mind immediately came up with a half dozen perfectly serviceable insults. Two of which the Polish One might actually deserve—four of which he definitely did not. She was about to go with the nicer of the two, but then she looked at him and the utterly relaxed way he moved around the kitchen cleaning things up. This place may be her prison, but it was his haven. Quill could take pity and let him have that. After all, it wasn’t his fault he fell in love with a self-important arse of a prince.

“Whatever,” she muttered and went back to her toast.

**Author's Note:**

> The very beginning is vaguely reminiscent of 'Joyride' but it felt like a natural progression for Quill's thought process when it came to mocking this woman. Also, I've clearly adopted evilqueenofgallifrey's "the Polish One" as canon for how Quill thinks of Matteusz 24/7.


End file.
